


Deeper Than Ever

by Merfilly



Series: Rizzoli and Isles Mafia AU [2]
Category: Rizzoli & Isles
Genre: Alternate Universe, Beginnings, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-24
Updated: 2013-02-24
Packaged: 2017-12-03 09:56:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/697022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maura is living with Jane as a form of witness protection</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deeper Than Ever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EllieMurasaki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/gifts).



Maura knew that she could not remain in her own life. She needed to stay in Boston to be able to help Jane, but she was well aware that her old life was unsafe now. As long as O'Rourke or any of his lieutenants remained on the streets, or still held any power, she and her brother both had prices on their heads.

Luckily, Jane had foreseen the need to protect her when the debacle reached its culmination with the death of Maura's father. She and an attractive younger man -- introduced as Jane's brother Frankie -- arrived and began boxing up all of Maura's belongings... with plenty of input from Maura while Maura was still reeling from the events.

"Be careful." Those words were uttered many times over, along with a quick lesson on whatever it was being boxed up and carried out to a waiting truck. She did not want her things damaged as badly as her life had been. 

"Relax," Jane finally said, catching Maura's hand and pulling her off to the side, out of the way of Frankie moving with a box. "Give us a few hours after its loaded, and Frankie will have lost any tail there might be twenty times over, and deliver it all at your new place."

"Where will that be, Jane?"

Maura's eyes met Jane's intently, searching for any sign that the woman meant to betray her again. She had been reacting more than she liked, her life too unplanned, which was making her head hurt. She couldn't even express the grief that she knew, on a clinical level, she did feel over her father's death. She had to keep going, making herself work through this all.

"My place. Witness protection, but with someone you already know."

At least Jane had not added 'and trust', but then, Maura could see that Jane knew she had shattered the trust that had existed between them with the revelation that she was a cop.

"That will be adequate in the short-term." 

"Good, because otherwise you'd have to put up with Ma and Frankie at home," Jane teased her.

"No father?"

Jane made a face, and all of her protective shutters closed in again. "He's having a life event, I suppose you could say."

"Ahh." Maura would press, but not right now, as Frankie came for the last box, and Jane led her downstairs.

* * *

All the moving was done, and the two women were finally alone again. Granted, Maura was at her absolute end of social capability; Ma had arrived to 'help' and meeting her had left Maura in more than a bit of confusion. Mrs. Rizzoli was a whirlwind of unorganized chaotic energy, and the near constant stereotypical Italian griping had been difficult for her to cope with. Yet, at the same time, watching Jane and Frankie and Ma argue back and forth, all of it good natured with no hurt feelings at the end of it had plucked at an unfulfilled ache in Maura's soul.

She, who should be so angry at Jane for her betrayal, found herself envying the normality of Jane's life with her family. While Maura had been loved by her father, the loss of her mother early on had left a void. With her father's business, and Colin being rather … distracted by his own pursuits, Maura had often been lonely. 

The taste of companionship she had known with Jane, this glimpse of family in such an alien culture, and the sudden upheaval in her own life had Maura on edge.

"You look strung out, Maura," Jane said, drawing her out of her reverie. "Do you need to go soak and hit the sack?"

"While the therapeutic value of a long immersion in a bathtub is compelling, I do not think I would need to violently engage a carrying device afterwards," Maura said, almost on autopilot as her brain made its own sense of Jane's offer. 

"It means 'go to bed', Maura." Jane half-smiled at the literalism, though, a familiar sight. "Go ahead, use up the hot water. I need to work on some notes for my case."

"About my father's life and death?" Maura pointedly asked.

Jane met her eyes, jaw tightening. "Yes. So that hopefully we can put the mob war behind us all by ending it, Maura. I may not approve of the life your father lived, but I would very much like to make certain his death doesn't spark more violence, and that it can have a lasting meaning for our city. Maybe that's cold, maybe it's wrong because I don't understand the reasons behind why the mob even exists, but it's better than letting him die with nothing but the war with O'Rourke to be his legacy."

"It's practical." Maura took a deep breath to wash away the heavier emotions that threatened her objectivity. "And useful. It may even be an ironic sort of memorial in the end." She turned to go to the guest room she was using so she could acquire pajamas and a robe, as well as her toiletries. The admission from Jane that she did not understand why the mob existed played in her head a few more times, percolating the seeds of a future conversation.

Maybe if they both tried to learn from the other, the betrayal would fade, and Maura could discern if the friendship had ever truly been real. If it had been, and Jane honestly had gotten in deeper than she ever intended, they could also find peace like Jane hoped the city would.

As she started the water running -- after having inspected the cleanliness of the bath and deciding it did meet her own standards -- Maura weighed the fact that she wanted to forgive Jane at all. The woman had not actually killed her father, but had used Maura to get close enough to be able to profit from the death. For so many years, Maura had been used for that reason... yet Maura was willing to listen to the motivation this time.

She closed her eyes, invoking a centering technique to banish her heavy thoughts. When she was willing to look out of her eyes again, it was to find the tub at the fullest level she desired. Stripping out of the clothes, and using the actions as a final symbolic act of stripping away her emotional turmoil, Maura settled into the tub to relax her body.

* * *

"How long will I be here?" Maura asked, three days after she had moved in. She was in the middle of cooking, despite Jane having insisted she did not have to.

"We're doing everything we can to round up evidence and get our subpoenas, but you don't have to stay with me. You're not wanted for anything by my department, and a proper witness protection setup could be arranged," Jane told her. Maura noted that the answer had come slowly, and Jane had only looked at her once before looking down and away.

"I just don't want to impose, and we already know my method of organization and yours are contrary to one another," Maura pressed.

"You're not imposing. How much am I actually home? And you can do anything you need to, so you feel comfortable here," Jane said, looking back over with worry-lines around her eyes. Maura noted the wider flare of nostrils that came with emotional breathing as well.

"You don't want me out of your territorial space?" Maura asked, studying the reactions further. Was Jane doing this out of guilt, duty, or more?

"I want you to be safe. Here, I think you are." Jane was honest in that, her eyes staying centered and focused, and Maura almost let it go at that. She had had three days, though, to measure her place in life and there were still data points missing.

"Safe so your case has its star witness?"

Maura saw the blanching of Jane's features as blood drew away from the surface areas. When Jane put down the remote and stood up from the couch, Maura felt the fight-or-flight instinct creep up in her own hindbrain. However, she stood her ground, even putting down the paring knife she had been using so she could face Jane fully.

"Maura, this case is important," Jane began, facing her in the kitchen. "But you matter too. I can't say you're more important -- I'm a cop, and it's all I've ever wanted to be -- but... as much? We could make the case on Colin's testimony now that you've got him willing to talk. If anything happened to you though, I'd feel it. For the rest of my life, and always second-guess myself when it came to undercover work."

"So your use of me has pointed out the empathic hole you held in your psyche where such tasks were necessary?" Maura attempted to clarify.

"Maybe that's all it is," Jane answered, softly. "I... you matter, Maura. You're not just your father's daughter."

Maura's lips thinned. She didn't understand, and she hated not understanding. She hated thinking that she was glimpsing the mirror of her own confused feelings even worse.

"I'll stay here. Until you tire of my presence, we start arguing constantly, or the trial is over. Acceptable?"

Jane held her hand out to shake on the deal. "I think that works."

* * *

Jane had fallen asleep on the couch, yet again, when Maura quietly passed through the common area in search of fresh water and possibly fruit. It was far too early on a Saturday for Jane to be up, yet Maura knew the various ailments that would strike the woman's physiology from such poor sleeping posture. 

Neglecting her own errand, she went over to the couch to rouse Jane and guide her back to her room. She reached down to gently lift the hand in Jane's lap, thumb sliding on that curious scar pattern that Jane had not yet explained. The touch was enough to start the waking process, so Maura added her voice in hopes of keeping it calm and light enough to allow Jane to return to sleep in her bed.

"Jane, you should be in your bed. Sleeping like this is terrible for your body," she said, pulling gently.

"Mmm," Jane rumbled, half-protest, half-assent as she followed the pull. Her eyes half-opened, and she let herself be guided to an upright stance. Maura, without thinking about it, draped the taller woman's arm around her own shoulders to offer more support against the poor motor ability of the freshly conscious cop.

"That's better. Right this way. A few steps more," she coaxed all the way to Jane's room, pleased despite herself at her skill in transferring the other woman to bed without fully rousing her.

Or so she had thought, as she went back to the door, only to be stopped by Jane's voice.

"Thanks, Maura."

"It was nothing," Maura answered, continuing back to the kitchen. It felt odd inside her mind, though, to have that sincere gratitude for so simple an action. It was almost as though it mattered to her that Jane would take the time to acknowledge her actions.

* * *

"How's it going with the mafia princess?" Korsak asked, which had Jane immediately turn and glare at him as she walked over to her desk. "What? It's been two weeks, and she's got to be getting on your nerves by now! You never like anyone for longer than three days."

"Leave her alone, Korsak. I think Jane's being very responsible by making certain Ms. Doyle doesn't pay for the bust on the mobs." Frost gave her a head tip at her look of thanks his way.

"Maura is doing fine. A little restless, but she's cooperating with the FBI coordinator they sent to help her set up a new life." Jane grimaced a little, not really liking that the case was stalling and it was looking more like Maura would have to move on to be safe. "That hit on her dad's former friend is a clear sign that she's got to be prepared for it."

"Heard she's a full-fledged doc even," Frost continued when Korsak didn't jump right in on the first-name basis.

"Yeah, with nothing connected to her name on the criminal side, that might help her out."

"Seems she should have a few aids and abets at the least, if she's been patching up Doyle's crowd all this time," Korsak groused. He was still just on desk duty from his own run-in before the whole sting had happened.

"But she doesn't," Jane defended, quick and sharp, sitting down with her coffee and current caseload.

The two men exchanged a look, wondering between them if Jane had really gotten in too far after all.

* * *

"You told me you would tell me the story of those," Maura said, sitting on her end of the couch while Jane rubbed, completely unconsciously, at the scar on her left hand.

Jane looked down to see what she was doing, to look at _them_ , and scowled at both the action and the need to talk. However, she had promised, and it really shouldn't be allowed to keep haunting her.

"It was my first case in, homicide," Jane began. "Killer was going after husbands and wives, killing the husband after torturing the wife while he watched, then killing the wife later." Jane looked down at her hands, choking on the memories as she tried to pay back part of the broken trust. "I was partnered with Korsak back then... the older man who came by?"

"I remember. Frost, the younger one, is your current partner. They seemed to have a strained relationship." Maura was analyzing the pain in Jane's face and voice; seeing that this first homicide case of hers held power over her in ways that were quite unhealthy.

"I had followed the suspect down into the basement, hoping I was in time to stop him from killing the wife in the latest pair. I did not clear my AO -- " she paused, then quickly clarified, as though she could see that Maura did not recognize the acronym, "area of operations -- thoroughly enough, and I took a blow to the skull." Jane swallowed a few times, then looked at both her hands, front and back, as her face tightened further. Maura wondered if it were just in memory, or if she experienced phantom pain in them as well.

"Then?" she pressed after the moments became minutes because Jane was lost in thought -- no, not thought. Memory. 

Jane looked away from her hands, and up into Maura's face. "He had, umm, immobilized me with scalpels through the hands, and was holding one to my neck. Korsak came in before it went further, and shot him."

"Fatally?"

"No." Jane's lips thinned at that. "We took him in, he stood trial, and he's now in prison, where I hope he rots."

Maura reached out then, holding her hands out for Jane to let her hold at least one. "Please?" she added when Jane hesitated. The other woman leaned forward, placing her hands in Maura's, who began inspecting the scars from both sides. When Maura looked up, she let her face show the compassion she did feel for such a trial of nerves. "You had a good doctor. But more, you had heart and strength to go back out there. It might not mean much to you, but I think my father could have respected that." She let go of Jane's hands, settling back into her space.

Jane let her head fall to one side, considering. "Thank you, for that... he mattered to you, Maura, so that means a lot."

* * *

"Lesbian dating site?"

Maura had not meant to look over Jane's shoulder, but the website header had done its duty by pulling Maura's eyes to it. She thought the web designer should be proud of the header for that reason.

"New assignment. Korsak and Frost both are conniving against me," Jane complained. "Had a woman killed outside a bar the other night. It's hosting a speed date night, and since I fit the deceased's body type, they think I might draw the killer."

"At a lesbian bar, I take it?" Maura asked, just to be certain that she understood.

"Yes. At a lesbian bar. The deceased was married but cheating, or so it looked like." Jane wrinkled her nose a little. "I have no idea how to set up my profile. I've never used any dating site, for men or women." 

"You want it to approximate without duplicating the victim," Maura told her. "To catch the attention of the killer without setting the killer on edge, correct?" she added when Jane looked at her oddly.

"Yes, but I'm not... good with these things."

"Is the deceased on the website? If I looked at her profile, I might be able to help you." Maura sat down after moving a chair closer to Jane's laptop, and to Jane herself.

Jane hesitated, then looked at Maura. "I don't want to drag you into my cases. It's not fair to you."

Maura smiled at her. "I'm not. I'm practicing psychology by employing my observational activities with the interface of an internet-based dating site."

Jane laughed, shaking her head. "If you want to 'practice', then by all means... go for it." She pushed the computer over in front of the other woman, then settled to watch over her shoulder instead. "The deceased's profile is in the second tab. The write-up for the nightclub speed-dating night is in the third one."

"You seem to do a lot of undercover work in bars," Maura commented even as she read the necessary information. "Taking advantage of the pseudo-anonymity and relaxed social mores pays off?"

"Often. Alcohol has led to a few confessions, or at least solid enough implications to allow me to find the real trail," Jane told her. "Thankfully, Boston's a big enough town and I'm not from a famous family, so I am able to just blend in as I go."

"Or you invent enough of a history to fit in where your accent and name would cause you difficulty." Maura paused long enough to look at Jane to see how her words had been taken.

Jane moved enough to rest her hand on Maura's shoulder. "I do what I do because I believe Boston deserves to be safer."

"Maybe we did too, and just didn't believe the police were the way to achieve that." Maura turned back to the screen, but she did not move away from the hand on her shoulder.

Jane didn't take it away, either.

* * *

Maura placed a plate on the table for Jane. She then settled at her own spot, while Jane divested herself of her gun and badge on the counter.

"Smells good."

"I was feeling... adventurous," Maura said. "It's a new recipe."

"I'm getting spoiled with you cooking so often."

"It's better for you," Maura told her. Over the weeks she had lived in Jane's home, it had been easy to fall into a domestic role, while spending most of her days following up on school options that would consolidate her expertise and the degrees she had managed to procure already. However, Jane's comment certainly opened the floor for the rest of the conversation that needed to happen. She waited for Jane to settle in and take the first bite.

"Oh that's good. You tackled Italian cooking well!"

"I hoped it would please you."

The tone Maura used made Jane frown, and she focused her attention away from the meal and on her … guest? witness? friend? "Maura, you know you don't have to do this, right?"

"I do know that, Jane." Maura laid her hand on Jane's lightly. "You could have tossed me into standard witness protection. You did not have to open your home to me. But you did. And you might have seen it as atonement for your part in my father's fall, but I don't think that's all it was."

Jane flushed slightly, and looked down at their hands. She turned her hand over, catching Maura's lightly. "I was never faking the friendship, Maura. You and me may be the most different women possible, but I like you, and I don't want to lose that. Yes, the case is damned important to me, but I hope that we still have a thread connecting us after it's all said and done."

"There will always be a thread, and I don't intend for it to just be the fact you were part of the destruction of my way of life." Maura tangled her fingers with Jane's at the flinch for the blunt description. "Which is why I told the Federal agent today that I would have an answer tomorrow, after I spoke with you."

Those words made Jane frown, then focus on actually eating. Maura knew it as a form of distraction, and let her get a few bites. She worked on her own plate, turning over the complications in her mind as they did.

"What answer?" Jane finally pressed.

"They have a new identity, a house in a good neighborhood, and all of my current degrees rolled over under the new name waiting for me," Maura said. "The trial is not for some time still, and Colin is moving into his new life."

"I would miss you," Jane blurted out, then she looked down, her skin flushed with the emotions she was feeling. Maura found the tinges of red fascinating, but she had to address this.

"I would like to be able to work," Maura said. "I think I have found a position suitable to me. But … I have grown comfortable here, and you have not seemed pressed for space or solitary time, and…."

Jane shook her head. "It's been nice -- having someone to come home to, I mean. Someone to just talk to that doesn't expect me to be perfect, or as imperfect as Ma thinks I am... and just... well, you fit. In my life and in my home but I know you should move on to better things. You're a hell of a woman with all your smarts and the way you look at things."

"What if I think I found better already? By staying here, to challenge the way you look at your cases because I grew up in a different lifestyle, I think I am doing better. The job I want will work under my new name. I can still go to school... but I don't want to impose either." Maura started to pull her hand free, but Jane did not release it, tightening her grip.

"You're the first person in a long, long time that I don't want to let out of my life," Jane said softly. "Can you... take the name and not the house?"

Maura smiled brilliantly at her, at that idea, at the fact she would have what she wanted. "Yes. No one in O'Rourke's organization seems to have tracked me here, so... yes."

"Good."

* * *

It was nearly three in the morning when Jane came in... and Maura sat up sleepily on the couch as she did.

"Thought you'd be asleep," Jane said softly. "In your bed, you know."

Maura started to answer that but took in the fact Jane was sporting an arm sling, and several bandages were peeking out of her shirt collar and showing on her face.

"You've been hurt," Maura said instead, standing to come help Jane get her jacket and gun off.

"It happens sometimes. Got in the middle of a take down that went hard; perp was strung out on something and didn't know his own strength at all. It's always harder to fight the mindless than people calculating their next move." Jane gave up on trying to move and let Maura deal with what had to come off.

"Because the instinctive hindbrain gives away few tell-tale signs, and the addition of the removal of learned inhibitions on using strength makes for a very dangerous combination," Maura agreed. "Who patched you up? This is not very professional."

"Korsak."

Maura frowned, then took Jane by the hand and elbow. "Come on. We'll get you cleaned up and then I'll rebandage you."

"Maura..."

"No, Jane. I don't want you getting any septic infection. I take it your dangerous perpetrator used nails or other tools at hand?"

"Staple remover and a letter opener," Jane agreed, letting herself be lead into the bathroom. "Frost finally clobbered him with a chair. Poor kid won't have any memory of why he's got a concussion or why he's in jail."

Maura paused, looking at Jane in the mirror. "He's not just a criminal in your eyes?"

"Well, no. He's a poor kid, bleak future, turned to drugs probably both to escape life and make a little money, but the hook was stronger than his ability to power through and sell for profit..." Jane shrugged, then hissed as that jostled her shoulder. 

"So you do understand that life makes people make bad choices?" Maura felt the realization click into place and soothe some of her continuing reservations about the nebulous thing she and Jane were for each other.

"Generally... there's limits, mind you. Murder is murder."

Maura shrugged that off; she mostly agreed. She just was fairly certain her definition of what was murder and what was justified killing made a difference there.

"Come on, out of everything... this shoulder is just sore, not actually dislocated?"

"Yeah, far as I know," Jane told her. She ducked enough to let Maura get the sling off of her. "Alright, Doctor Doyle...."

"Isles now," Maura corrected.

"Yes ma'am... Doctor Isles, I think I can manage the rest on my own. Meet you in my bedroom?"

"It's an appointment," Maura managed to tease her back, even as she thought about the way Jane wasn't as blind to the realities of life as she had thought.

* * *

Jane twitched violently in her sleep, bringing Maura up out of her own doze. The sleep-fog gave way to confusion; why was she in Jane's room? Then she noted the first aid kit, and recalled that she'd been so tired after working on the stiff shoulder that was plaguing Jane. Jane had murmured incoherently at the feelling of being left alone, so Maura had simply taken the other side of the bed.

Apparently that was good fortune, she decided as Jane twitched again. Maura rolled onto her side, looking at the other woman's face. It was drawn tight, with rapid flickers of the eyes behind the lids. Maura knew her friend had nightmares; Jane often went in to work or to the gym far earlier than was strictly necessary because her sleep had been interrupted by them.

This was the first time she had been able to confront them, which Maura now did by reaching out gently to rest her hand on Jane's side. She would have chosen the shoulder, but thought jarring it was a bad idea given how sore it had been the night before.

"Jane," she said softly with the touch. She knew Jane was only half-aware as those eyes snapped open, her whole body rigid. "Shh, Jane... nightmare. You're safe at home."

Jane processed that slowly, then closed her eyes hard and tight against the vague impressions of her dreams, curling to lay her head near Maura. "You're safe," she whispered, and Maura felt her breathing quicken in response to that.

"I wasn't, in your nightmare?" she asked Jane.

"Hoyt... he came. He hurt you, made me.... made me watch. Just like his other murders."

"The one who damaged your hands," Maura said softly, shifting so that Jane could lay her head on Maura's shoulder. "But I'm not your wife," she reasoned, trying to point out the logical fallacy in that setup. Pattern killers did not deviate from their modus operandi. 

Jane had found enough equilibrium to snort at that. "Better to me than anyone else ever has been," Jane told her. "I'm not easy to date. Never have been."

"Good thing we skipped the courtship to go directly into domestic partnership then?" Maura asked lightly.

"So long as it never gets you hurt," Jane told her soberly. She shifted enough to look at Maura's face. "I hurt you too much for ten lifetimes already, by not keeping your dad alive when it all went down."

"But you saved my brother, and you've been honest with me ever since." Maura tried to read what was in those eyes, tried to decide where they were now in this undefined relationship.

"I'm trying, Maura. You deserve at least that much, even if you do hear far more about the homicides in Boston than any ten other people." Jane brought her hand up to rest it on Maura's other shoulder. It might have been just to even out the weight and pressure on her hurt shoulder, but Maura felt oddly cosseted by it.

"With the new job, I'll be learning even more about death, so it is helpful," Maura reassured her. "Jane..."

"Yes Maura?"

"Are you... comfortable with me being right here?"

Jane raised her head up a little, and they regarded each other intently.

Then Jane settled back on Maura's shoulder, and nodded against it. "I don't know where this is going, Maura, and that scares me some, but I know if you stay right here, I might go back to sleep. Because I'll know you are safe... and I'm not alone."

Maura could not help but smile at that summation. "Then I think I want to stay right here, for a long time." She got her arm around Jane, and they settled the covers a little more equally over them.

"Good." Jane's eyes closed, and her breathing evened out long before Maura brushed a kiss into her hair. That was just right, Maura decided. They could do this slow and easy. Even if they didn't know just what 'this' was. She closed her own eyes, and was soon asleep with Jane held close, content with a new sense of belonging.


End file.
